Is race is not a biological reality but a social construct?
Mar 28, 2025 17:42:39 GMT
lucyg, Merge, and 2 more like this
Post by Chips on Mar 28, 2025 17:42:39 GMT
Thoughts on a Friday afternoon - Is race is not a biological reality but a social construct? I have not really thought about this before but in researching race is a social construct. Biologically scientists have known that there are not genetic based on race.
It means that your race changes based on which racist you talk to. Let’s say that you come from Ireland. At one point, certain racists would have classified you as being non-white.
Talking to a different racist, you might instead be considered to be white. Talking to yet another racist, he might declare that you are not white, but Jewish. A different racist might say that actually, even if you have pale skin, that doesn’t matter, if one of your ancestors had darker skin, you are actually black. And maybe there is yet another racist that will declare that you are actually a ginger, and that counts as a separate race, because gingers look slightly different.
The racists make up the classifications, and each little racist group has their own classifications.
I can come along, and declare that I, Pascal, am a member of the Pascal race (which is totally the best race), and everyone else is part of the (inferior) “not-Pascal” race. Which is just as arbitrary as any other racial classification.
From - www.quora.com/What-does-it-mean-when-people-say-race-is-not-biologically-real-and-is-instead-a-social-construct
"What the study of complete genomes from different parts of the world has shown is that even between Africa and Europe, for example, there is not a single absolute genetic difference, meaning no single variant where all Africans have one variant and all Europeans another one, even when recent migration is disregarded," Pääbo told Live Science. "It is all a question of differences in how frequent different variants are on different continents and in different regions."
"While we argue phasing out racial terminology in the biological sciences, we also acknowledge that using race as a political or social category to study racism, although filled with lots of challenges, remains necessary given our need to understand how structural inequities and discrimination produce health disparities between groups," Yudell said.
From - www.scientificamerican.com/article/race-is-a-social-construct-scientists-argue/#:~:text=Today%2C%20the%20mainstream%20belief%20among,being%20used%20as%20biological%20variables.
It means that your race changes based on which racist you talk to. Let’s say that you come from Ireland. At one point, certain racists would have classified you as being non-white.
Talking to a different racist, you might instead be considered to be white. Talking to yet another racist, he might declare that you are not white, but Jewish. A different racist might say that actually, even if you have pale skin, that doesn’t matter, if one of your ancestors had darker skin, you are actually black. And maybe there is yet another racist that will declare that you are actually a ginger, and that counts as a separate race, because gingers look slightly different.
The racists make up the classifications, and each little racist group has their own classifications.
I can come along, and declare that I, Pascal, am a member of the Pascal race (which is totally the best race), and everyone else is part of the (inferior) “not-Pascal” race. Which is just as arbitrary as any other racial classification.
From - www.quora.com/What-does-it-mean-when-people-say-race-is-not-biologically-real-and-is-instead-a-social-construct
"What the study of complete genomes from different parts of the world has shown is that even between Africa and Europe, for example, there is not a single absolute genetic difference, meaning no single variant where all Africans have one variant and all Europeans another one, even when recent migration is disregarded," Pääbo told Live Science. "It is all a question of differences in how frequent different variants are on different continents and in different regions."
"While we argue phasing out racial terminology in the biological sciences, we also acknowledge that using race as a political or social category to study racism, although filled with lots of challenges, remains necessary given our need to understand how structural inequities and discrimination produce health disparities between groups," Yudell said.
From - www.scientificamerican.com/article/race-is-a-social-construct-scientists-argue/#:~:text=Today%2C%20the%20mainstream%20belief%20among,being%20used%20as%20biological%20variables.
